Paul E. Watson grew up in Portland, Oregon, with two sisters and a tarantula named "the Overlord." He currently resides in a small Midwestern city with one roommate, a frog named Jor-el, and a StarCraft II addiction. Check out our exclusive one-on-one interview with Paul E. to learn more about the man behind the world's hottest robot.
TR: Your description of T.R.I.N.A. in the book is . . . well, she's hot. Did you base her on anyone you know?
PEW: Ha ha, no, I based her on a girl I wish I knew!
TR: If The Robot were made into a movie, who would you cast as T.R.I.N.A.? How about Gabe and Dover?
PEW: Haley Williams from Paramour! I think she's cool. Or Karolina Kurkova. She's pretty great-looking. And blonde. I know they're very different, but I'm just trying to cover my fantasy bases here. Riley Griffiths from Super 8 would be an awesome Gabe, and David W. Thompson from Win Win would be Dover.
TR: Talk to us about the "Theory of One." Have you ever seen it in action?
PEW: Totally. Girls want a guy who's girl-approved. There was this kid in my sophomore class in high school: he had a face like a sweat sock but one day he was in the bleachers at a basketball game with this girl who was amazing looking. And they LEFT EARLY!!! Everyone was talking about it; all of a sudden, you would just see cute girls talking to him in the hall, and within a week he started dating a junior. A junior! Much later, when I was home from college at some party, I heard that girl had been a babysitter, a girl from another school, that he was supposed to bring home to watch his little brother while his parents took him to get glasses or some dorky thing like that. But none of us knew it. Unbelievable. So yes, I would say the "Theory of One" works.
TR: Which type do you think is sexier: nerdy babes, like Beverly, or women in uniform, like Agent Kate Applewhite?
PEW: I'm kind of a sucker for the yank-your-glasses-off-and-let-down-your-hair nerd fantasy, but let's face it: if a girl is hot, smart and likes me, I'm not gonna be like, "Oh, but her Air Force regulation jumpsuit was too tight."
TR: You mention The Lord of the Rings a lot…who's your favorite LOTR character?
PEW: The Ents. I told you I was a nerd. Or if I didn't, you just figured it out.
TR: Aside from writing, what are your interests and hobbies?
PEW: Eating, playing video games, watching Game of Thrones, Skyping, not doing my laundry.
TR: The Robot's main character, Gabe, is a bit of a nerd. Are you more like Gabe or his horny best friend Dover?
PEW: I am a horny nerd.
TR: Gabe and Dover are freshmen who, at first, seem to struggle on the high school social scene. What was high school like for you?
PEW: At first it SUCKED. Freshman guys are the bottom of the food chain and I was pretty short and terrible at sports. I went for full-on class clown. One day, in chem class, we were doing that experiment where you dip a copper rod in silver nitrate to see what the reaction is. The solution forms crystals on the rod. I decided to get this girl's attention by licking the crystals off the rod. It tasted so bad and turned my tongue black. Later I learned the solution was poisonous, if ingested in…well, amounts larger than I'd swallowed. I'm still waiting on the tumor. But that girl laughed, and just like that, my rep was cemented.
